What is Linguistic Justice Actually About?

 In this second episode of College Writing, Actually Britt gives tutors a brief but detailed intro to linguistic justice. Want to add anti-racist instruction to your tutor toolkit? Grab your notebook! 

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Transcript

[ 00:00] Music intro

[00:03] Hello writers. I’m Britt Threatt and you’re listening to “College Writing, Actually.”  Where we talk about the how-to and how-come of writing and writing instruction every other Wednesday while school is in session. As promised, today I’m jumping into the deep end with writing tutors who want to expand their knowledge and practice of antiracist writing instruction. College students, you’re welcome to stick around. The more you know, the better sense you have of your choices, the better you can advocate for yourself particularly if you are a writer of color with a rich language that may be devalued in certain spaces. This episode will not be over your head.

[00:37] Let’s do it already! Antiracist writing instruction! How? Audiobook review. I recently came across Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy by April Baker-Bell and it showed me “a whole new world” (yes!) of ways to think about linguistic justice in the classroom and linguistic consciousness for students– both of which are terms we’ll talk more about. Don’t you dare close your eyes! 

[01:02] Music interlude

[01:06] First of all, I’ll just tell you this is the first full book I’ve read on anti-Black linguistic racism, linguistic justice, all these issues I see in essays and hear in talks, this is the first book length work I’ve read about them-- not because it’s the first, it’s just my first-- and I highly recommend it. Baker-Bell doesn’t assume the reader knows anything, whether theoretical, pedagogical, or practical-- because the book comes from work she did in 2013 at a Detroit high school, Leadership Academy so we do get a lot of practical um advice and practical application and practical instruction and resources and that's honestly one of my favorite things about this book.   

{01:48] So jumping in, we’ll go chapter by chapter. I won’t linger long on the foreword but it is written by Dr. Geneva Smitherman, a giant in Linguistic Studies who’s been writing about Black language for four decades. Her first paragraph offers a good set up of expectations for the book so it’s worth reading. 

[02:06] Music interlude and pages turning sound effect

[02:12] "At long last, this is the book we have all been waiting for. A book designed to develop our students' critical understanding of and historical consciousness about Black Language. A book that builds on that critical inquiry to motivate students to formulate ways of impacting and changing the linguistic status quo. As a leading member of a new generation of language and literacy scholar-teacher-activists, Dr. April Baker-Bell represents for Black Language and its speakers because she get it. Props and much respect to Baker-Bell for her wisdom, her creative genius, and her years of teaching experience in the educational vineyard, which have given birth to the brilliantly crafted Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy."

[02:58] And it is exactly all of those things. So chapter one is titled “Black Language is Good on Any MLK Boulevard” and Baker-Bell is right at it introducing two big terms: Black Language and White Mainstream English. She pulls in Smitherman’s definition of Black Language from her 2006 iconic book Word From the Mother: Language and African Americans. You may be familiar with it. This is the definition Smitherman gives and Baker-Bell references. So this is the definition of Black Language. Quote: Black Language is "a style of speaking English words with Black Flava with Africanized semantic, grammatical, pronunciation, and rhetorical patterns. [Black Language] comes out of the experience of U.S. slave descendants. This shared experience has resulted in common language practices in the Black community." End quote.

[03:47] Baker-Bell builds out from this definition but what I want to pull out is that she challenges the reader to see that there is a direct link between racial hierarchies-- discriminations/prejudices-- and language hierarchies. They’re inseparable and the term Black Language acknowledges that.

[04:04] Music interlude

[04:07] So from there she defines White Mainstream English, which she substitutes for standard English to highlight that white ways of speaking, whether they’re correct or not, are the mainstream and norm. She pulls in her co-editor of the Black Language Syllabus website, Dr. Carmen Kynard who says this: "WME means something different from standardized English. Many white people think they are speaking standard English when they simply are not; they are just normative so the moniker of “standard” follows them from the flow of white privilege."

[04:40] Now that was an insight that blew me away because as soon as I read it I was like, “oh yeah, of course.” Because, like Baker-Bell points us to in defining Black Language, racial and linguistic hierarchies are inextricable. So it makes perfect sense that racial privilege, to be centered and legitimized as a matter of course, extends to how that privileged person is speaking. It’s as white--excuse me, right-- as they are. And I love this book for these kind of simply stated “aha” moments that reveal a matrix that can otherwise be inaudible.

[05:14] Music interlude

[05:17] Moving on, the next major happening in chapter one is when Baker-Bell says with her full chest, “some of y’all are gonna have to admit you drank the kool-aid”-- and I’m tongue and cheek with my paraphrasing but that’s essentially what she says. She begins this subsection of the chapter with an exchange that happened during a presentation she gave at a 2017 NCTE convention-- um NCTE is National Council of Teachers of English. 

I know this is a “quick” review but I’m reading this and you can’t stop me! And I’m reading it because other parts of the book were revelatory for me. This part of the book was convicting-- and I mean it snatched ¾ of my edges. So it's a quick exchange that she shares and then her response to the teacher. So it begins with the teacher saying,

[06:03] "In order to dismantle white supremacy, we have to teach students to code-switch!" And Baker-Bell responds, "If y'all actually believe that using 'standard English' will dismantle white supremacy, then you not paying attention! If we, as teachers, truly believe that code-switching will dismantle white supremacy, we have a problem. If we honestly believe that code-switching will save Black people's lives, then we really ain't paying attention to what's happening in the world. Eric Garner was chocked to death by a police officer while saying 'I cannot breathe.' Wouldn't you consider 'I cannot breathe' 'standard English' syntax?"

[06:39] Music interlude

[06:43] This is a book review so I won't get too far into this but that moment is when I knew that I was reading the book I had been looking for. As a Black woman who teachers, right. I work in the writing center. I have taught-- I have TA'd for classes where I had grading responsibilities. I have taught my own class. I have sat across from Black students who find the white academic um conventions of composition really stifling. And I didn't really know what to tell 'em, because on the one hand, absolutely I've wanted to be like "just write how you write...just--don't-- forget them!" Right? That's what I wanna say. But then I'm like "I don't want to get my students in trouble. I don't wanna get Black students in trouble because I'm not their only professor.

[07:42] So yes, I could be like "write what you write to me" but what if they do that with Professor So-and-So and they get penalized for it. And so I've struggled with, as I'm reading these different things, from like Professor Vershawn Ashanti-Young and people who are talking about students right to their own language-- and the NCTE issued a statement about students right to their own language in 1974 and yet here we are and I have those same hesitations because nothing substantial has changed in the academy where I'm not sure a student-- a Black student-- that I told to write in their own English would not still be graded punitively for that choice. BUT what I needed to hear was that's not truly going to save the student anyway.

[08:38] What it does, especially to hear that from a Black teacher, is reinforce what they've already been told, that Black Language is less than. And so I needed April Baker-Bell to real talk me and be like "listen here, that's internalized linguistic racism!" It just is because it's not going to save them ultimately. Class is arbitrary. Like they're only gonna be in college for so long but when they go out in the world with these ideas, it's not going to save them to say "I can't breathe" versus "I cannot breathe" and we've seen the tragic evidence of that. They can-- plus that, they can be judged off of their skin, their hair, their clothes all before their mouth. These are other points that Baker-Bell makes later on. And so this part, this point that

[09:34] Bell-- Baker-Bell makes early on really drew me into the book because that's when I knew that it was going to be confronting common arguments against Black Language that I am so educated by academic um conventions of composition, White Mainstream English, that I didn't even know how to think myself out of that. I didn't know how I could be able, in good conscience, to tell a Black student to write in Black Language and just let that be that, right. Because I felt like I was hindering them. But the opposite is true. And I-- Baker-Bell really helps to think through the fictions that make us believe the lies about what has currency and what is a hindrance.

[10:28] In this exchange we have a summary of one of Baker-Bell’s main points and I’ll use that to catapult us through the rest of this chapter and chapter 2. What Baker-Bell says here is that, yes, there is coercion for Black people to speak White Mainstream English and for teachers to “correct and corral” Black students so they learn not only to speak but to value White Mainstream English. HOWEVER, implicit in that is a devaluation of Black life. She and Smitherman have already told us in defining Black Language that it’s tied into Black identity. And so as easily as we can say that Black Lives Matter is the same urgency with which we need to say Black Language Matters. Privileging White Mainstream English over Black Language, or anyone else’s English, is linguistic racism and when Black students internalize that, it does them real harm. 

[11:19] This is what Baker-Bell unpacks in chapter two as 10 Framing Ideas For an Antiracist Black Language Education and Pedagogy, so we’ll “pass go” to chapter 3. But certainly spend some time with chapter two's “What’s Anti-Blackness Got to Do With It?” if you are an educator wanting to implement an Antiracism Black Language Pedagogy in your classroom.

[11:40] Music interlude

[11:44] In chapter 3, “Killing Them Softly” the biggest offering I saw was methodological and it’s called composite character counterstorytelling. What is that, right? You ask good questions. Composite character Counterstorytelling is, and I quote, "a critical race methodological tool that allows researchers to merge data analysis with creative writing to expose patterns of racialized inequality and deepen our understanding of the ways race and racism affects the lives and lived experiences of people of color as individuals and as groups in schools". End quote

[12:18] So essentially, Baker-Bell takes a like trend that she sees across multiple students and gathers them into a composite character where she can distill the complexity--um, and distill not as in like "erase" but distill as in "concentrate"-- on the complexity of a group of students um into one composite character for our benefit and understanding. She creates composite characters to show different approaches to Black Language and White Mainstream English. I found them so compelling. The composite characters are of Linguistic Double Consciousness and Internalized Anti-Black Linguistic Racism. Now, I hear you asking good questions again. Good for you.

[12:57] Linguistic double consciousness basically is a code-switching mentality that pushes against anti-Black linguistic racism in some ways and participates in a politics of linguistic respectability in others. And Internalized Anti-Black Linguistic Racism is where a student buys into the devaluing of Black Language and the people who speak it. So Baker-Bell creates composite characters who show us how these things function in students. An important caveat: composite character counterstorytelling is not equivalent to fiction, to making things up. They’re contextualized social situations, okay? Grounded in real-life experiences. 

[13:35] Now, Baker-Bell didn’t invent composite character counterstorytelling. She talks about it like it’s a known and well-used thing for researchers countering majoritarian myths and narratives  but this is the first I’ve heard of it and her use of it is supremely clarifying.

She uses composite character counterstorytelling to show what she’s been telling. Teaching White Mainstream English as a dominant and preeminent language hurts Black students-- and I’m telling you that reading those counter stories was heartbreaking because these are conversations I’ve heard from students and teachers, conversations I’ve had with friends while we're hanging out and with professors in office hours. There’s nothing fictional about it. She also gives us student worksheets that have what students thought of people who spoke Black Language versus people who spoke White Mainstream English-- and they drew also what they thought those people looked like. It was every racial stereotype they’ve been taught put to bullet points and stick figures. Okay? Picture that and try not to cry.

[14:34] Music interlude

[14:39] As heartbreaking as chapter three was is as useful as I found chapter four, “Scoff No More.” This chapter is a worksheet party and I found them so, so helpful to think about how I’d broach these conversations in class and how to teach Black Language. Because that’s the thing that Baker-Bell acknowledges, and often. You can speak Black Language wrong. It has rules. And so it is important to tell Black students that speaking Black Language is not inherently wrong or unintelligent. It’s to be celebrated. It’s your culture. It’s your mother tongue. And it’s also important to teach them the grammatical and syntactical and pronunciation rules just like they’ve been taught about standard English. That’s chapter four. We get a brief history of Black Language and its development from enslaved Africans, how it absolutely was a form of resistance and ingenuity that after slavers separated people so no one around them spoke their same language, enslaved Africans and their descendants made a way out of no way and now we have Black Language

[15:36] We get a worksheet about how to spark that discussion. We get a worksheet with linguistic rules. We got a worksheet on talking through the connection between language, race, and power. I loved it. I loved it all. Practical, practical, practical! That’s what I’ve been needing in the theoretical claims I’ve been hearing and Baker-Bell gives me that. Oh! Called me out then pulled me in. Y’all, I was relieved. If you’ve been feeling like “okay but how?” *music interlude begins* Baker-Bell chapter four is here for you.

[16:06] Now chapter five was when I cheered. It was like I was reading a hero’s journey because this chapter, “Black Linguistic Consciousness” is when we see the results of the consciousness-raising component of the Antiracist Black Linguistic Pedagogy that we’ve seeing for the past two chapters. In chapter five, we get composite character counterstorytelling of the students starting to interrogate and resist white linguistic hegemony and AntiBlack Linguistic Racism-- and that’s what Black Linguistic Consciousness is. Baker-Bell has the students do the same exercises and complete the same worksheet they did before: look at these sentences written in Black Language and these sentences um written in White Mainstream English and write what you think of each person and how they look. The responses showed far greater esteem and excitement for Black Language. I mean these kids-- and this is my reading of the counterstory-- but I was just reading revival from them. 

[17:02] Not only that, though, they were thinking very critically-- and by that I mean intently and deeply-- about when and where they should be able to speak Black Language and White Mainstream English. It really seemed to me like they were expressing a desire to code-mesh, a practice Dr. Vershawn Ashanti Young coined and continues to champion. That people shouldn’t switch when and where they speak their English and White Mainstream English. They should bridge them wherever they are, in personal and professional contexts. So we have this encouraging conclusion to Baker-Bell’s time at Leadership Academy and a darn good case for the effectiveness of Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy.

[17:38] Music interlude

[17:41] Chapter six, “THUG Life” is a bonus chapter that’s five years after Baker-Bell’s time at Leadership Academy. This is work she did with teachers in training on using Black literature to discuss the link between language and identity. She does this by studying Angie Thomas’s bestselling novel The Hate U Give. In the chapter she advocates for English and Literature classes not just to focus on plot but language and the characters’ relationships to language. She offers her class with these teachers in training as an example, including exercises, reflection and discussion prompts, and supplementary readings. I mean *music interlude begins*, Baker-Bell really blesses educators who want to do this work.

[18:21] I found Linguistic Justice to be the perfect introductory book to antiracist instructional pedagogy. I hope that I’ve given you a workable survey but I definitely encourage you to get this book-- and you’ll probably want to buy it because the way I had to stop myself from highlighting this library book… I don’t want that struggle for you. Thank you for listening to this episode of “College Writing, Actually.” As always, write on.